


i'll know you were my future

by Acavall



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: ChinaLine, M/M, Thank you one fine day in Japan for their glorious meet cute story, This is pure fluff, inspired by the choreo, my i, they want me dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 10:50:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11507862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acavall/pseuds/Acavall
Summary: Jun ponders the red string of fate.





	i'll know you were my future

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this edit](http://blondshua.tumblr.com/post/162984864025/akai-ito-the-red-string-of-fate-a-myth).

The practice room smells like sweat and fresh pine, and the wooden floor is cool beneath Jun's back. There's a warm pressure on his wrist where the white rope is looped around it, and it tugs every now and then with Minghao's movements as his companion runs through his moves.

He's also on his back but his arms move above him compulsively, painting pictures in the air.

"Stop," Jun groans, craning his neck to try and get a better look at his dance partner. "You're supposed to be resting."

Minghao doesn't respond, his arms still moving, and then suddenly there's a sharp pull on the rope and Jun feels himself dragged a few centimetres.

"Ya!" he yelps in surprise as Minghao giggles to himself.

Jun rolls over to pull a face at Minghao. Minghao just grins at him.

"You done resting old man?"

"Fine," Jun grumbles, ignoring the insult as he pushes himself up. He glances at the clock. It's well past midnight, and they've been practicing this one song for over six hours now. "I'm going home at 2 though."

"Sure," Minghao says airily. He doesn't sound like he believes it.

He rises to his feet in a movement that's somehow graceful and sharp at the same time. That's Minghao's dance, his movements, Jun thinks. That's Minghao.

Jun shakes himself, trying to get his mind to focus. "From the top?" 

But Minghao seems distracted too, playing with the length of fabric that binds their hands. His feet are absentmindedly walking him through a section of the dance, but Jun thinks it might be subconscious, because Minghao doesn't have his dancing face on. 

"Tell me the concept again?" Minghao asks, meeting Jun's gaze with an expression like he's asking for a bed time story.

Jun's face melts into a loose smile, teasing. "You know the concept."

"I like to hear you tell it," Minghao shrugs, looking petulant. It's the look he gets when people tell him he's cute and he tries to refute them. Defiant. Self assured. Stubborn. His cheeks are pink, the hours of work having left a permanent blush there. Or maybe he's embarrassed to ask. Jun decides not to toy with him.

"Akai Ito, the red string of fate," Jun replies warmly, lifting his wrist where the rope is bound around his skin, and not bothering to hide the affection clear in his voice. In truth, he likes to be asked.

Minghao pulls at the rope thoughtfully. "Does it bother you that it's white?"

Jun shrugs. "Easier for the audience to see."

Minghao is still looking at him expectantly, so Jun pulls the rope, coiling it around his forearms. "Fate connects two people destined to meet by a string."

He holds his arm taut, and Minghao mirrors him, so the white rope stretches tight between them. Jun lifts it over his head, rolls it down his shoulders in one of the choreographed movements, folding it in and over to create shapes out of its taut lines. Minghao moves with him in perfect harmony. It's always like that when they dance together. They slip into each other's movements and rhythms as though not just connected by one rope but thousands at every nerve ending.

"No matter how many twists and turns their lives take, the two people bound by fate will never break their string. No matter where they go, what they do, they're always connected."

Jun turns, and the rope that was coiled and twisted suddenly unravels, once more a straight line from him to Minghao. He loves this dance, the way they can seem to pull themselves in so many directions, tug their rope a hundred ways, but always end up where they began. Just the two of them, facing each other.

Jun tugs slightly, pulling Minghao towards him with a soft smile.

"It draws them closer together, because that's their destiny."

Minghao let's himself be drawn in, until he's close enough for Jun to ensnare him in the rope, looping it around his shoulders until he's held captive. Jun can hear his breathing become sharper, more staccato, can tell the pink in his cheeks is definitely a blush now.

"Ge -" Minghao murmurs, and Jun captures his lips with his own.

*

It's Junhui's first day at the company, and the noise is deafening. He knows there's only maybe fifteen or sixteen other boys in the room, but it sounds like a small army is occupying a camp in the Pledis basement.

"Junhui?"

He blinks, turning his attention back to Seungcheol, whose been pointing at and naming the rabble. Junhui will be lucky to remembers maybe two of the names he's been told. Seungcheol has grabbed another boy by the shoulder, someone drowning in a oversized shirt with his hat pulled low.

"And this is Minghao."

Minghao. Isn't this the boy Junhui knew from school, who had come to Seoul to become a trainee? His friends had told him they were likely meet. Junhui feels a little relieved. He's tired, in a country where he doesn't know the language, and he's been second guessing his decision to leave China since he'd set foot in the airport. It all seems like slightly too much, like maybe he'd taken a wrong turn in his life. Like there's a brightly lit path he should be on, but he's accidentally gone down some back alley instead.

Someone calls to Seungcheol, and the leader smiles apologetically before disappearing into the chaos. Well, at least Junhui knows someone here. He pulls on a grin.

"You look different," he says loudly in his home dialect, reaching up and yanking off the boy's cap. With a shock like cold water, Junhui realises he doesn't know this boy at all. The Minghao he knew had a squarer face, a sharper nose. This one is thinner, more pixie like, though there's a glint to his eyes that is a little intimidating. Junhui has definitely never seen this boy before. He would remember someone so otherworldly.

So that's great.

"What?" the boy Junhui has basically just assaulted asks in Mandarin, staring unblinking in a mixture of confusion and irritation.

"Uh," Junhui replies awkwardly, slowly putting the hat back onto the boy's head. "Sorry. I thought you were Minghao."

"I am Minghao," the boy replies, his expression something that could only be called cross, like that of a harried mother. Junhui cringes inwardly.

"But not my Minghao." He instantly regrets the poor phrasing. Minghao's eye twitches.

"Your Minghao? No, I'm not your Minghao." He sounds annoyed. Junhui wants to fall into a hole in the earth. He's officially pissed off the only other Chinese boy here. He could have had a friend. He could have had a brother. He's really fucked this up.

"I- " Junhui says, at a loss for words. "I'm sorry?"

And of course, his damn braces choose this moment to set off the waterworks. He watches stray flecks of saliva land on Minghao's shirt, and says nothing, a rabbit frozen in headlights.

"Did you just-"

"Really, really sorry," Junhui amends before Minghao can finish that thought. He can feel his face is on fire.

The two stare at each other, Minghao's expression indecipherable. He's kind of pretty, Junhui thinks, but in an odd sort of way. He's interesting pretty. Not boring common pretty. Like a beautiful mushroom in the forest, rather than a tired flower from a shop.

His thoughts might have something to do with how Junhui got off a plane about three hours ago. He really needs to sleep.

"Ok," Minghao says after what feels like a year of silence.

"Ok?"

"Ok," Minghao repeats, still sounding annoyed. "But call me your anything again and I'll beat you."

"I'm older than you," Junhui says weakly, because Seungcheol had told him where he stood in terms of age, so he knows Minghao is at least a year or two younger.

"Not my problem," Minghao shrugs. He glances at the snack table, and back at Junhui. "You want something to eat?"

And like that, Junhui's life goes from before Minghao to after Minghao.

*

The rope becomes entangled between them as they kiss, hands everywhere they can reach before a tug of fabric pulls them back to reset their course.

The feel of Minghao under his hands, against his lips, his chest, is so familiar to him now. The way Minghao smells, the taste of him, down to his breathing, his heartbeat. All things Jun knows so well he can't fathom he ever had a life before this. Before his every sense was perfectly attuned to Minghao.

He'd been so lost when he came to Seoul. And then, Minghao. Sometimes he really does feel like he was on a course, walking forwards, always moving, trying to reach this point. Just this.

Jun can feel Minghao smiling against his lips, an amused smile.

"What?" Jun huffs, drawing back, and Minghao's eyes crinkle slightly.

"I can hear you thinking," Minghao laughs, pressing their foreheads together.

"Liar," Jun tells him with a grin that hits his eyes. Minghao knows him too well. Minghao grins back.

"My Jun," he says, and he's laughing a little. He's never stopped giving Jun shit for that first meeting, but somewhere along the way the nickname took on another meaning.

"My Minghao," Jun replies, his tone softer than he meant it to be. That tends to happen to him around Minghao.

He remembers when Minghao had told him he wanted to write a song. To practice Korean, Minghao had said, and the two of them had set about it together, and somewhere around three in the morning delirious with exhaustion their attempts had broken down into fitting bilingual pins into a tuneless cacophony and laughing between kisses.

"My ai," Jun breathes now, kissing Minghao again as Minghao hums their song against his lips, their hands entwined together in the white silky rope.

**Author's Note:**

> lmao I wrote this on a train on my phone I don't even have a computer I'm in Japan I just have so many feelings about the My I choreo?????


End file.
